Topic: Movie thread.

@Maxenmus

@Maxenmus that guy is awesome I love his videos! His take on stuff is fresh and what he covers is a nice breather compared to everybody else on YouTube.

Jerry Goldsmith rocks. The first time I heard his music was during The Mummy (1999). He really brought Egypt to life, and that solid end title theme... mwah, chef's kiss.

True that. Everybody else is usually chasing the trending MCU films, bleh. Enough Marvel already, please. No offense, MCU fans.

@Maxenmus I'm getting tired of the MCU myself too much too fast.

@Kermit1 Yeah, I've barely watched any series nowadays. Skipped Ms. Marvel too. I remember a time when I was one of those who would religiously follow each phase's releases too, but nowadays, I had to look up Echo and remembered her as that one character from the rather lackluster Hawkeye series. I don't even remember if she was name-dropped in that series as Echo (I think they used her real name), so when I saw "Echo" in Marvel's recent Phase 4-6 announcement trailer, I went:

I guess comic book readers would be more familiar with her, but I haven't followed Marvel Comics for almost a decade now since Spider-Verse.

Haven't watched it, and I will watch it when everyone shuts up about it

@HotGoomba It's "okay". I like Moana more personally.

@Maxenmus Everyone did go:

I feel like Phase 4 will be the growing pains of the Multiverse Saga, like how Phase 1 was the growing pains of The Infinity Saga. I think it'll get better and better once the Saga progresses.

But yeah Eternals and Black Widow scared me, as did the last episode of Wandavision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Even Love and Thunder was just ok, albeit overhated.

Tangled is my favorite Disney Princess movie personally.

Wait is Enchanto even a Disney Princess movie?

@HotGoomba Yea kinda sorta a "disney princess"

@Kermit1 Yup, and it also made theaters more money from those who want to see the movie multiple times.

Not sure about other parts of the US, most theaters I've been to in recent years has been an AMC theater. Which is one of the biggest theater chains. I never notice them doing anything special. I did see Sonic cup toppers for the Sonic movie, but nothing really special. Tickets are as simple as flashing a phone.

@Sunsy I have been missing out on one of the best movies ever! For song long! And the fact that the other endings played at different theaters is something I wish they would do more often! Ending 1 and three were my favorite!

@Kermit1 It really is something special, so many quotable lines as well! I love it!

Watched I am thinking of ending things my god, what the hell was that? The timelines slipping all over the place, a random dance interlude, the Main woman's name and job changing 3 times.
Man that was a slog to get through it and not much explained.
Watched it because Toni Collette was in it, and normally she does some really good films.
Looked it up and supposedly its about schizophrenia, I was just confused as hell.

Unpopular opinion: I'll defend Eternals till death. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was an ambitious move for Marvel to create such an unorthodox movie for the blockbuster crowd. When I heard they were hiring the new director who made Nomadland, Chloé Zhao (a fellow Chinese!), it was one of the selling points for me because it's like hiring Darren Aronofsky to do a Hulk movie or something, plus the fact that they hired the legendary Angelina Jolie. It's like seeing Jodie Foster in a Marvel film! Who else would be perfect as a goddess than the iconic Angie herself? lol I loved her as Thena. She killed it. A character who becomes this murderous goddess because of a mental health issue? Get out of here. That's a wild storyline for the PG-13 MCU that was incredible to see. It's a tragic and unique character arc that was easily one of my favorite parts of the film.

I've also always enjoyed unorthodox comics from Marvel that go deep into issues of the human condition, so that movie was perfect for me. I really loved the generation-spanning story that explored the worth of humanity. My only gripe is that it should've been a TV series, but obviously, Marvel didn't have faith that it would sell. They were right, but c'mon, it would've been an awesome TV series IMO. That's the real issue with the film, Marvel didn't give the story in Eternals a chance to breathe its own space in a TV series length. It crammed so many topics into a movie, so obviously, people didn't get the opportunity to appreciate the plot in its own space with the rushed pacing, and people hated it.

I'll just leave this here:

There are clearly a lot of people who defend the movie in those videos' comment section (which is impressive for the usually toxic YouTube comment section), so I'm glad I'm not crazy and I'm not alone.

Give me a director's cut of Eternals TV series please. I'd watch it.

I liked Black Widow too actually, but probably because I didn't go in with such high expectations. I was looking to have a good time, and the movie offered a fun spy flick with decent character development. People were saying, "It's so unrealistic, that free-falling scene at the end." Uh, hello? You have a purple alien with a prune chin wiping out half the universe with space gems. C'mon. This isn't the most unrealistic thing in a spy movie even. Have you seen James Bond films?

In fact, in spite of my gripes with Phase 4, I liked that Marvel shook things up with shows like WandaVision, delving into mental health issues that were previously window dressing in MCU films. Iron Man 2, for example, could've been a lot more interesting had it tackled the alcoholism themes from the Demon in a Bottle storyline the movie was obviously inspired from. I get why they didn't do it, considering how it's a sensitive issue for the actor involved, but still, I thought it was a waste.

Yeah, that sounds about the same as Singapore theaters. We have special tumblers for popular films released and flashing phone tickets too.

@HotGoomba @Maxenmus
Eternals grew on me. The first time I saw it, I didn't like it too much. The movie intrigued me though and I couldn't resist watching it again on D+. I came to like it more and more each time I saw it and it's now my most revisited movie of Phase 4.
Black Widow on the other hand, I'll probably never like.

Oh, and Mirabel Madrigal from Encanto is not a Disney princess. @Kermit1
It's not because a main female character sings that she automatically becomes a princess.
It's one of the reasons why I love Encanto so much. This is a story about a very normal girl living in a family of extraordinary people. Usually it's the other way around.

Most definitely. It's definitely one of those films that's better on rewatch... like most films with complicated storylines, actually.

I just wish Marvel didn't get scare away by the ratings because god, I'd love an Eternals 2. I never cared as much about a Marvel film like this since The Winter Soldier. Yeah, that's high praise coming from me, a vocal MCU critic who called out Phase 2 and 4 regularly and wasn't as obsessed about the MCU as the rest of the world since Guardians of the Galaxy, which I found boring.

I'd probably give Encanto a try some time, considering its popularity. I just got tired of Disney animated films at some point, so I didn't bother.

@Maxenmus @seaboyluca Just wanted to clarify, I don't hate Eternals or Black Widow. They're both good. However, I did think they were both overall weak.

I think Eternals had a ton of promise and I congratulate Marvel for trying something different, and I think I like some of the characters, maybe.

But that's the problem that I think we both agree with. This should've been a Disney+ series. The film was too mushed together to fit both introducing all these characters and also having the "save the world" plot. This ended up with the movie being lacking in both departments. Characters we don't know much about, and a bit of a messy story. I feel like this movie does a bit too much of telling us what's happening instead of showing us.

Does the film deserve the first ever rotten score of any MCU movie? No. Dark World deserved it. But is a lot of its criticisms understandable? Yeah.

Even Black Widow wasn't horrible, I just feel like it's too little too late. Nothing about it screamed "Phase 4" or "The Multiverse Saga" to me other than the introduced characters and the, spoilers, [I]END CREDITS SCENE 😱😱😱. This film would've fit much better pre-Infinity War. Just move the end credits scene to some other Phase 4 movie or show, idk Eternals or something , and boom, good to go.

Also Black Widow getting delayed twenty times kinda killed my excitement; I know that was mostly out of Disney's control, but still. And I'm still mad at them for putting Pixar out of theaters for so long, so I'm not forgiving them.

But yeah I agree with the mental health stuff. That's why I absolutely love *Iron Man 3 and the majority of Wandavision.

Eternals 2 would definitely be a step above the original, like...most Marvel sequels.

_{^{also ouch at that Guardians of the Galaxy comment.}}

@HotGoomba I do agree. I feel like Eternals could've been a better story as a series as well, and it's one of those films that was a major, major misstep because it wasted a perfectly good concept and storyline (which I still deeply enjoyed despite its shortcomings, which makes the misstep much more tragic since it could've been so much better).

And yes, definitely agreed that there's a lot of "telling" than "showing," which was one of my criticisms in my Eternals review. It's a tough concept to nail though, so I was pretty forgiving, especially when I consider how vague the whole Eternals/Celestials concept was to begin with. It's an ambitious project, perhaps too lofty for Marvel's hands.

And I know a lot of people love Guardians. I thought it was okay. It wasn't one of those films where I had problems with a poorly written plot like Jurassic World, but more that I didn't enjoy the characters at all. I thought they felt generic and cliched, and maybe that's the point, but if so, the appeal obviously didn't get to me. shrugs 'Tis a shame.

@Snatcher Watch MirrorMask please, it's a hidden gem!